Page 330 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

THE KANGNIDO: A KOREAN WORLD MAP, 1402

Gari Ledyard

U U 'nless Columbus understood a few ob- mands, and the northeast territories stayed to as the Kangnido), was completed in 1402. It

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scure references in Marco Polo that the Vene- with Koryo. Three years later, Yi took the easily predates any world map known from
tian traveler himself had probably misunderstood, throne himself, bringing the Koryo dynasty to either China or Japan and is therefore the oldest
he knew nothing of Korea when he set out on an end after almost five centuries of rule. such work surviving in the East Asian carto-
his first voyage. He knew about China and This was no mere dynastic change. Into graphical tradition, and the only one prior to
Japan. But if he had wanted to find the most power with Yi Song-gye came a movement of the Ricci world maps of the late fifteenth and
complete map of the world that any East Asian Neo-Confucian reform that within a generation early sixteenth centuries. Although it is no
country had to offer, he would have had to go to remade Korea into a completely different kind longer preserved in Korea itself, there are three
Korea, then known as the Kingdom of Choson, of kingdom. With the dispossession of the old versions in Japan; of these the copy in the
to see it. For in Choson's royal palace was a map Koryo aristocracy, and the disestablishment of Ryukoku University Library (Kyoto), which is
that not only included all of China and Japan, Buddhism as a state-protected religion, the displayed in this exhibition, is acknowledged to
but showed India, the countries of the Islamic reformers launched a political program that be the earliest, and in the best condition. The
world, the African continent, and — most as- proclaimed Confucian priorities in social policy, principal distinguishing characteristics of the
tonishing of all — Europe itself. Spain was easy educational reconstruction, and cultural devel- Ryukoku copy are its generally excellent condi-
to recognize on this map, and Columbus might opment. Thousands of monks were laicized and tion and its preservation of the original Kwon
even have found Genoa along the strangely a multitude of slaves manumitted, all to rein- Kun preface. Painted on silk and still preserving
bending shores of its Mediterranean. Admit- vigorate the revenue-producing peasantry, on its colors well, it is a very large map, nearly
tedly, the image of Europe needed some im- lands often confiscated from monasteries. A square at 171X164 cm (67/4 X 64'A in). It
provement, and Korea itself, we have to small but dynamic corps of Confucian ideolo- was first brought to scholarly notice by the
acknowledge, was much bigger than it ought to gists rewrote the legal codes, redesigned govern- Japanese historical geographer Ogawa Takuji, in
have been. But what map made in Europe had mental institutions and the civil service, and in 1928. 4
as good an image of Asia as this map had of its countless other ways turned the Neo-Confucian The place to begin discussion of this very
own world? intellectual revolution of the Chinese philoso- unusual map is with its preface, the crucial part
This essay is an attempt to understand how pher Zhu Xi (1130-1200) into state orthodoxy. of which is translated here from the text on the
such a rare cartographic gem was put together. These men, who saw their regime as having the Ryukoku copy, with reference to the closely
Like most gems, this one needs a setting, and classical "Mandate of Heaven," had a keen similar version in Kwon Kun's collected works,
that is where we will begin. awareness that they were effecting millennial the Yangch'on chip. 5
The founder of the Choson dynasty change, and their vision became concrete in a The world is very wide. We do not know how
(1392-1910) was Yi S6ng-gye-i335-i4o8; 5i8-year rule, which apart from China's chro- many tens of millions of li there are from
r. 1392-1398, a military man and native of the nologically problematical Zhou dynasty, and China in the center to the four seas at the
northeast frontier, who had risen to fame for his Japan's very different monarchical institution, outer limits, but in compressing and mapping
resistance to the Japanese marauders who had is the longest dynastic duration in East Asian it on a folio sheet several feet in size, it is
plagued Korea throughout the fourteenth cen- history. indeed difficult to achieve precision; that is
tury. These were veritable armies, sometimes It is no accident that among the early cultural why [the results of] the mapmakers have
two or three thousand strong, whose coastal projects of this new regime we should find a generally been either too diffuse or too ab-
raids often penetrated far into the interior; no map of the world and a map of the skies — heaven breviated. But the Shengjiao guangbei tu
town anywhere in the southern provinces was and earth themselves redefined and proclaimed (Map of the Vast Reach of [Civilization's]
safe from them. Yi's successive victories over within the cadre of Korea's cultural revolution Resounding Teaching), of Li Zemin of Wumen,
this menace throughout the 13805 had brought to demonstrate the new dynasty's cosmic legiti- is both detailed and comprehensive; while for
him a national following. He came to power in macy. Nor is it mere coincidence that the offi- the succession of emperors and kings and of
1389 in a spectacular military coup. In 1388, the cial guiding both of these projects, Kwon Kun, countries and capitals across time, the Hunyi
Ming dynasty, which had just ousted the Mongols was one of the key Confucian scholars among jiangli tu (Map of Integrated Regions and
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from the Liaodong area, demanded that Korea the reformers. The star map, which purports Terrains), by the Tiantai monk Qingjun, is
turn over the lands northeast of the "Iron Pass" to be a revision of an ancient Koguryo map, was thorough and complete. In the 4th year of
(Chollyong) that had been administered directly engraved on stone in 1395. It has been the the Jianwen era (1402), Left Minister Kim
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by the vanquished Yuan dynasty. Koryo re- object of several studies. Here we limit our- [Sahyong] of Sangju, and Right Minister Yi
fused, and ordered Yi Song-gye to attack Ming selves to consideration of the world map. [Mu] of Tanyang, during moments of rest
forces in Liaodong, but Yi, thinking this policy The Honil kangni yoktae kukto chi to ("Map from their governing duties, made a compar-
ill-advised, took over the government instead. of integrated regions and terrains and of histor- ative study of these maps and ordered Yi
Ming, given the change, did not push its de- ical countries and capitals"), hereafter referred Hoe, an orderly, to collate them carefully and

TOWARD CATHAY 329